[Modern intracranial pressure measurement techniques. Basic principles and general practice]

Measurement of intracranial pressure (ICP) has to be regarded as a standard procedure in today's treatment of severe head-injured patients. Intraventricular or intraparenchymal measurement should be used. The essential value for intensive care treatment is the cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP). Its value should be kept strictly > 70 mmHg. Computer-based analysis of the ICP-signal provides further options of an online monitoring of intracranial reserve capacity and the state of autoregulation. However, until now, there are no software solutions commercially available which would allow for such advanced signal analysis--the reason might be that the potential of advanced signal analysis has only been discovered within the recent years.